Project Lancer was my first ever experience using Zbrush. While I had used Substance Painter before, it was only when I took ITGM 333 with Professor Parrish that I was able to understand it even more.
Part of the pipeline was constructing our own character and weapons concepts for our characters. The concept was going to include turnarounds, callouts, inspiration and color pallets for our character. With my interests being deeply rooted in military and fantasy based works, I went with a royal / elite detachment human lancer.
Once I had the character set up and the call outs sorted I started to experiment with the style and colors I wanted for the armor. Would I want something more flashy, or subtle. Did I want to go for a more realistic style, or maybe something more set in 3D anime-esque designs.
While working on the anatomy of the body and retopologizing higher poly assets like the chest armor, I was working on created the weapons for the lancer as well. Since it was a royal guard/ elite detachment I felt something functional, yet ornate at the same time would be the best way to approach this. The designs were inspired from various concept pieces and then mixed together to create the best outcome. I create some parts of the weapon in Maya, and the rest in Zbrush, polishing it up along the way.
Her hair was one of the most toughest aspects of getting it right. I wanted to create color variation to ensure depth, but I also had to hold back layers them over as it would sometimes blend into a muddy mix. I spent two weeks going back and forth over it with Professor Baker in order to really achieve the best look we could for the hair. These are some work in progress shots of the hair. I was very happy with the final outcome. I also learnt to make sure I separate the hair into clumps next time instead of sculpting it altogether (I got a little carried away I know).
Here are the final rendered shots. Once I was happy with the hair I went back to focus on the skin, making sure the roughness and texture worked well with the subsurface scattering in order to bring it closer to the realistic look. Even though the overall model is still stylized I wanted to see how much I could experiment with the skin. I then created a blurred background to help the character stand out. I added a little depth of field on the camera and rendered in Marmoset Toolbag 4.
Thanks for following along on my journey with Project Lancer!